BLUES joins the World Sponge Conference 2025

Ahead of the General Assembly meeting in Portugal, several of the BLUES partners attended a key event for marine invertebrate aficionados 

Small but mighty - for those of us who hold marine invertebrates and sustainability dear, sponges need no introduction. And this year we were delighted to join the event for researchers and experts on this species: the annual World Sponge Conference in Vila do Conde, Portugal. 

Our colleagues at Wageningen University & Research and Møreforsking presented a poster on A Novel Cryoprotectant for Marine Sponges and Beyond, introducing a new solution that can be used to cryopreserve sponges, and explaining why this is important in the first place (e.g. when sponges come from geographically remote places). 

Plus, the enthusiasm was contagious with Marcela Loy Martínez, one of our young researchers - and apparently, the audience took note as of that, as she was awarded the Best Flash Talk prize for her presentation on the Sponge hydrobioma technology: Enabling continuous cell division in non-dividing, compound producing species. 

And that's not all - our colleague Marina Pozzolini at the Università degli Studi di Genova conducted an oral presentation, deriving from her research in our project, on Genomic and transcriptiomic insights into the fibrillar collagen gene repertoire of the marine sponge Chondrosia Reniformis Nardo, 1847. 

At the end of the day, advancing knowledge through your research is fantastic, but getting to share it with your peers and exchange experiences? Even better. We're looking forward to more such opportunities to connect with experts! 

 

Can you imagine my excitement when I presented part of my work at this conference?! Seriously, I was totally in my element, surrounded by scientists from all types of fields working on the same phylum: PORIFERA!🌊🧽

This conference took place in Vila do Conde, Portugal, and I had an amazing week filled with very interesting presentations, posters, and tons of socializing. I had an absolute blast! 😁 I got to meet so many "sponge celebrities" and young researchers—I'm already looking forward to many future collaborations with them.💡

🎤 I thoroughly enjoyed talking again about Sponge Hybridoma Technology and what we've done around it within the BLUES EU project. And apparently, the audience loved it too! 🏅 It was fantastic to receive recognition for my presentation.

In summary: a perfect experience at the 12th World Sponge Conference!